Episode 61: Smart Habits for Drumming Up New Business with Melanie Padgett Powers
Episode 61: Smart Habits for Drumming Up New Business with Melanie Padgett Powers So many of us have experienced the ups and downs of freelancing, which have felt magnified over the last two years as a result of the pandemic. We’ve heard from many of you that you’d like more ideas for ways to grow your business and get more recurring work from clients. Well, our guest today happens to have some excellent advice on this topic, and we’re thrilled she agreed to join us. In today’s episode, we get to talk to a fellow freelancer, podcaster, and word person! We think you’ll love hearing her insights on a topic we all want to learn more about: drumming up new business! We’re happy to welcome Melanie Padgett Powers to the podcast. Melanie is the owner of MelEdits and lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C. She is a freelance writer and managing editor for health care membership associations and regularly writes about public health, COVID-19, health care, and issues related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. She has a journalism degree and was previously a newspaper reporter in her home state of Indiana. Melanie is also the creator and host of the Deliberate Freelancer podcast and the new Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group, which focuses on the business side of freelancing. Tune in to hear our conversation on: • When and how Melanie started her freelance career, what services she offers, and how her business has evolved over time • What smart habits have been crucial in her career • Her thoughts on work/life clarity for freelancers and how she tries to protect the boundaries between work and personal life • How she drums up new business and what’s worked well for her • Her tips for navigating the feast/famine cycle and finding long-term ways to overcome it • What marketing methods work best for her, and how she finds time to fit them into her schedule • Melanie’s smart habit tips on how to create more times of feast than famine while avoiding burnout • How a regular business audit helps her as a professional and what she would suggest to people who want to start doing regular business audits • What kinds of tasks her virtual assistant (VA) does for her and how working with a VA benefits her business • Melanie’s tips on growing your freelance business deliberately Resources we mentioned in this episode: • Registration for our Asana workshop on March 24, 2022 • Registration for our next Virtual Business Retreat on March 17, 2022 • Melanie’s podcast: The Deliberate Freelancer • The Facebook group for Deliberate Freelancer listeners: please listen to the podcast first and then join! • Subscribe to the free Deliberate Freelancer newsletter and receive two email templates Melanie used to secure $30,000 (per email!) in new work • Follow Melanie on Twitter • One of Melanie’s favorites: Book tracker: Reading List See the full list of links and resources for this episode: https://smarthabitsfortranslators.com/podcast-episodes/61